The EIIP has over 40 years of experience in more than 70 countries giving it a unique portfolio of productive employment creation for economic development, social protection, and natural resource management.

Employment intensive investment

Around the world millions of people lack infrastructure (roads, bridges, water supply, etc.) to access basic services (water, health, education). Improving infrastructure and maintaining them can improve living standards and have a direct impact in the quality of people’s lives. Productive community infrastructures can also contribute to reducing (rural and urban) poverty and have the potential for offering better economic and social benefits.

Employment-intensive investments link infrastructure development with employment creation, poverty reduction and local economic and social development. In using local labour and resources they create much needed employment and income, reduce costs, save foreign currency, and support local industry while increasing the capacity of local institutions.

The combination of local participation in planning with the utilization of locally available skills, appropriate technology, materials and work methods has proven to be an effective and economically viable approach to infrastructure works and jobs creation in many countries.

Highlights

The theme of this edition is: "Delivering on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): The Employment–intensive Investment Approach". Participants will discuss the role and contribution of employment-intensive approaches in achieving the SDG outcomes mainly focussing on building national capacities for employment creation, expanding employment-based social protection floor and conserving the environment - including addressing climate change and its adverse effects.

Representatives from various development partners supporting the ILO in Jordan visited the cities of Mafraq and Irbid to witness first-hand how the UN agency is working to ease the impact of the Syrian refugee crisis on the local labour market.

The event provides a platform for interactive learning that will enable decision makers and technical teams of the governments of Central American countries, Panama, Dominican Republic and Haiti, to design and develop innovative PEPs that will ensure access of the population at risk to decent work and social protection opportunities according to their own structural characteristics.

Training manuals for barefoot technicians (MGNREGA) and contractors & field engineers (PMGSY) as well as impact assessment study of PMGSY roads were launched at an event jointly organized by the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India, and the ILO at Vigyan Bhawan on 6 October 2015 during the visit of Ms. Sandra Polaski, Deputy Director-General (Policy), ILO.

By Ms Sandra Polaski, Deputy Director-General (Policy) at the Opening Session of Knowledge-Sharing on the ILO/Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD)/World Bank PMGSY Programme and launch of NREGA barefoot technicians training modules, in collaboration with the Ministry of Rural Development

Key resources

This document provides information about the main components of the Employment Intensive Investment Programme (EIIP) of the ILO, namely Employment Impact Assessment, Public Employment Programmes (PEPs), Public and Private Sector Development, Green Works, Community and Local Resource-Based Approaches, and Emergency Employment.

This Guidebook on designing innovative public employment programmes was developed in 2012 by the International Labour Office (ILO)'s Employment Intensive Investment Programme (EIIP). It is supplemented by a course that has been developed with support from the ILO's International Training Centre (ITCILO) for a mixed audience of policy makers and social actors, planners, and senior / middle-level officials from different national ministries and development agencies and programmes concerned.

The guide describes the approach in the context of climate change adaptation and identifies the benefits for poor communities. It links climate change adaptation with poverty reduction and employment creation. The guide contains three general sections on the context and the approach and five technical sections that identify possible climate change adaptation works in five subsectors: irrigation, soil and water conservation, flood control, rural transport and forestry. It elaborates on the local resource-based approach and demonstrates how green jobs can be created through green works.

Rural roads are the last link of the transport network, however, they often form the most important connection in terms of providing access for the rural population. The permanent or seasonal absence of road access is a constraining factor in terms of providing rural communities with essential services such as education, primary health care, water supply, local markets as well as economic opportunities. The availability of such services and opportunities are difficult to sustain without a good quality and well-maintained rural road network, which provides regular and efficient transport access throughout the year.

Provides a set of guidelines for programmes which aim to integrate cost-effective employment-intensive approaches into infrastructure works while respecting basic labour standards and working conditions.